Maybe the real bloat was the apps we needed all along
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
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It's not bloat if you use it.
Then again, am I really using these Haskell libraries? I just want to use pandoc. I love Arch, but the organization of the official repos is sometimes suboptimal.
you're right, installing pandoc on arch really comes with a lot of bloat. Iirc it's >200 haskell libraries.
Last I checked (which was some time ago), pandoc-bin doesn't require the haskell dependencies. I saved quite some installation time (and screen space during installation) by switching.
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I never understand this obsession with "bloat" when you can buy a 1 TB SSD for € 50.
or you can't buy if you're not successful enough or you're in the wrong country. For example, in my country, the minimum cost of a 1TB SSD is about $85 and a salary of $2,000 is considered a very successful salary at the upper limit
It's not about storage. It's about complexity getting back at you, for example not knowing what caused a problem because multiple programs are stepping on each others feet
For me it's not about the size, it's about the understanding. I'd really like to understand what everything on my system does and why it's there. It seems impossible with modern systems. Back in the '90s I needed a secure email relay - it had lilo, kernel, init, getty, bash, vi, a few shell utils (before busybox..), syslogd and sendmail. I'm not sure any more as it was a long time ago, but I think I even statically linked everything so there was no libc. I liked that system.
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For me it was a problem with update frequency and how long they would take. Once i got rid of my flatpaks and moved to stable firefox i update once a week instead of daily now and it takes seconds instead of minutes. Probably also solvable with auto updates.
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mfs with a 16 core cpu, 64gb ram and 10tb storage be like
Hey! I have 128gb of ram
…and still restart my browser if it’s using over 1 gb
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Every person who comments about “bloat” in their install should be required to preface their post or comment with a full definition of “bloat.”
This shit is obnoxious.
I actually wonder if we could ever agree on a definition?
Maybe:
Bloat: any unnecessary, superfluous software, software package, or feature that is unused or unnecessarily inefficient, and/or uses system resources to an unessasary or unreasonable degree.
What do you guys think? Because then we can still argue about bloat and what reasonable is! And that's what it's all about. Arguing for the sake of it!
Bloat is relative to every person / usage case but I agree with this definition.
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Bloat = making your system usable
- annoying people who whine about bloat
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You can use window managers instead of DEs. While I prefer DEs because how much features they have you may not need these features
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Still way less bloated than win11 I'd wager
Step 1. Install the most secure, pure, minimalist Linux distro
Step 2. Get frustrated at the complications
Step 3. Give up and go back to Windows
- a story I've seen happen more than once
I've had the exact opposite experience on arch, mostly because of the arch wiki.
- Install arch using the arch wiki for reference
- If an issue arises, consult the arch wiki
- Document, contribute, and help others
For me unfortunately it has been Step 1 install literally the most universally compatible distro possible
Step 2 audio drivers craps out. No fix is available. Trying to apply workarounds completely Bork the system
Step 3 install again. graphics driver is problematic, refresh it giving it MOS permissions. I miss the MOS permission screen at the reboot. Look for how to do obtain that option again. No easy way to do it at all. Bork the system again
Step 4 install again. Notice touch screen support is completely useless, and pen is not supported.
Step 5 Ask myself if keeping a 1200$ computer with tinny audio, no graphic hardware acceleration and a half functional display can be justified in any way. It can't.
Step 5. Back to windows. Bloated, but it works.
Unfortunately system support is still very iffy on some models. I'd really like to embrace the distro life but can't.
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Don't install neofetch, so many dependencies.
But how would he show that he uses Arch, without Neofetch?
Cat /etc/os-release ?
uname -a ?
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Most people in this thread don't get it.
You know how some people compete to see who can get Doom to run on the craziest platforms, like a calculator?
Installing Arch with the fewest packages is like that. There's something oddly satisfying about stripping everything back to the most basic level - to make things work for you within the most constrictive environment you enforce for yourself.
It's like eating a spicy shellfish dinner and super gluing your asshole closed.
Arch Linux: It's like eating a spicy shellfish dinner and super gluing your asshole closed.
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As someone who primarily uses Windows, Ubuntu didn't feel like it had any bloat when I tried it.
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Started playing with arch this week for the first time. Got a pretty good laugh when I realized that I forgot to install a dhcp client and had to boot the install media again to add networking.
I appreciate what they’re doing and I’m going to keep poking at it, but my first impression is that philosophy is driving and the utility is in the back seat.
So just run archinstall Personally as a relative newbie I found arch a lot easier to deal with than fedora and ubuntu, both of which have had me in dependency hell on previous attempts to switch to linux. Not only that but I have a much better idea of what makes up my system.
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Install minimal linux.
Your ~/.config folder is 3GB
> Install NixOS
> Learn about Nix
> Organise your dotfiles
> Learn about flakes
> Organise your dotfiles
> Learn about modularisation
> Organise your dotfiles
> ...
Twelve window manager are not bloat, it's variety!
I mean - you control what gets installed on Arch. One finger pointing at arch is three pointing back in this scenario...
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I have installed probably 100 packages on my arch install, it's still sitting at like 8gb used. Arch isn't the problem in this scenario
Flatpaks have helped me a lot reducing bloat, avoiding dependency hell.
That said, probably there's some overlapping dependencies that, if installed in a different way I could save some space, but it's not worth it in my opinion.
I'm also using rootless podman+systemd for certain services, but that's been a mixed bag compared with plain old docker or LXC.
I thought the number one drawback to flatpaks is that they're enormous because each one includes all its own dependencies
No, same dependencies get deduplicated
Ah interesting. Good to know. Thank you
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